Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

I was just talking about this with someone, and Legends really isn’t a DC show anymore.  To use this season so far, there is so much DC lore they could be pulling from to populate this magic story:

The Demons Three - Justice League level villains which include their own quest element with the bell, wheel and jar artifacts used to summon and banish them.

Nebiros - the Demon connected to the origin of Blue Devil - a stunt man who becomes magically fused with his animatronic movie costume.

Neron - DC’s version of Satan who focused on offering villains power ups to encourage them to be evil again - a perfect story for Mick Rory to take part in.

Mordru - the timeless Lord of Chaos with a strong connection to the Justice society, the Legion of Super-Heroes and Gemworld (featuring the hero Amethyst).

That’s just off the top of my head.  There is so much they could be doing, but instead we’re getting unicorns and fairy god mothers. At this point, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend has as much claim of being a DC show as Legends does.

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

TemporalFlux wrote:

I was just talking about this with someone, and Legends really isn’t a DC show anymore.

Did anyone else read this and get jealous? Like -- TF is talking to someone about LEGENDS? Someone who isn't US? Who!? Where!? When!?!? Why weren't WE included!??! Oh, wait, we are being included. Okay. Carry on.

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

ireactions wrote:
TemporalFlux wrote:

I was just talking about this with someone, and Legends really isn’t a DC show anymore.

Did anyone else read this and get jealous? Like -- TF is talking to someone about LEGENDS? Someone who isn't US? Who!? Where!? When!?!? Why weren't WE included!??! Oh, wait, we are being included. Okay. Carry on.

lol

Earth Prime | The Definitive Source for Sliders™

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

ireactions wrote:
TemporalFlux wrote:

I was just talking about this with someone, and Legends really isn’t a DC show anymore.

Did anyone else read this and get jealous? Like -- TF is talking to someone about LEGENDS? Someone who isn't US? Who!? Where!? When!?!? Why weren't WE included!??! Oh, wait, we are being included. Okay. Carry on.

Well, he is a guy who dresses up as the Ted Kord Blue Beetle in his spare time, so...

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

This conversation has taken a weird turn.

Please be informed that the political, scientific, sociological, economic and legal views expressed in Informant's posts and social media accounts do not reflect any consensus of Sliders.tv.

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

I really enjoy LEGENDS because of the cast, and Ray Palmer is my favourite character on the show. I think Brandon Routh is great. What follows is armchair psychoanalysis regarding Brandon Routh, the way I theorized as to Jerry O'Connell and David Peckinpah and James Gunn's inner thinking. It's theory. Don't take it seriously. I said don't take it seriously. Why are you taking it seriously? Stop taking it seriously!
 
Ray Palmer's character on LEGENDS is one of the high points for me, but there's clearly been a shift from ARROW with Ray almost a different character. Yet, Ray's character rings true for me because of Brandon Routh's performance. Acting isn't about pretending; it's about finding your truth and presenting it in a fictional context, and Ray's trajectory mirrors Routh's.
 
Routh started out as a jobbing actor who worked on soap operas and tended bar and sometimes played bartenders in soap operas before getting laid off soap operas and just being a bartender. Due to auditioning for shows produced by McG, he managed to get an audition for McG's SUPERMAN and the audition videos were kept when Warner Bros. went with another director. Routh was cast as Superman, his career going from zero to blockbuster. 
 
The resulting movie was trounced at box office by romcoms and pirate movies. But Routh was told he'd be in a sequel; the movie had done adequately. Then three years passed, his contract expired and Warner Bros. made no move to renew it and now clearly planned to move on from him.

Routh was quietly shattered by this: he had expected the next decade of his life to be acting as the custodian of Christopher Reeve's legacy. He'd thought, at least, that playing Superman would lead to many other offers. But he didn't get any other offers.
 
He had to go auditioning again and he confessed in a podcast that he was embarrassed at going from playing Superman to TV guest star roles. Routh was depressed, it affected his work. Looking at his acting, it's like he was afraid to make strong, individual choices that might offend anyone and cost him another job (even though he couldn't have done anything differently to see SUPERMAN RETURNS get a sequel). 
 
You can see an anxiety-depression complex in his work on CHUCK and in ARROW's third season: he's earnest and sincere, but it's the only note he hits, making his characterization wooden. He's afraid to embrace the words and make them his own. He's also extremely low energy; he's not enthusiastic, he isn't impassioned. In real life, Routh was tired; onscreen in ARROW, it came off as Ray being a detached, distant, mysterious scientist, haunted by the murder of his fiancee. At the end of Season 3, he went missing and Season 4 revealed that he'd been trapped in isolation for months.
 
This led to LEGENDS where Routh's performance suddenly changed, as did Ray. Stepping aboard the Wave Rider, Ray became hyperactively enthused about time travel, adventure and superheroics, diving into situations impulsively and constantly making bad situations worse before learning to make them better. 

His high energy was an irritant to the team; his screwups every week led to Reddit starting what the community termed a "Fuckup Counter" for Ray. He was a handsome hero who made a lot of mistakes and he had to struggle and persevere to triumph and needed a lot of help from his friends. He had no ego; he always accepted responsibility for his errors and took his spot on the chore wheel. It's hard to imagine the suit and tuxedo Ray of ARROW doing laundry on LEGENDS. 
 
Onscreen, there was no direct explanation for this change, although Routh's performance suggested that Ray's months of isolation had caused him to regress to a more childish state. After all, the ATOM suit had proven to be a damp squib in the tech community; he'd come to rebuild Star City only for it to carry on without him. All this had eroded Ray's previous superiority complex. 
 
The result is a character I find deeply endearing: an excitable, charmingly earnest and sweet manchild who screws up. A former mogul who's been cut down to size and accepts his diminished stature with a mix of humiliation and grace. And a vastly improved performance from Brandon Routh who has embraced this flawed and lovable character with gusto. Routh is a lifelong gamer and fantasy fan, and he really sold Ray's joy at seeing dinosaurs and the Wild West and the 60s and space.
 
The real reason Ray Palmer changed, however, is that Brandon Routh changed. By the time LEGENDS started, his son was two years old and Routh realized that his depression over Superman was affecting his family life and career. He accepted that he had to audition for roles; he wouldn't be offered leading parts based on SUPERMAN RETURNS. He came to grips with how he would never play Superman again and he would have to find some other life-defining character to play. He understood that becoming Superman had meant skipping over guest-roles, supporting roles and roles as part of ensembles -- roles he would have to not only accept but embrace to rebuild his career.

As he emerged from his depression, Routh also became obsessed with nutrition, discovering the peculiar beverage that is "Bulletproof Coffee," a grammatically curious name for a combination of grass-fed butter and coconut oil into coffee from mold-free beans as well as a high-protein and fat diet with low carb intake. Routh's physical health went on the upswing, his energy levels ramped up significantly and the once withdrawn and quiet Routh became a manic chatterbox. The LEGENDS writers proceeded to rewrite Ray with Routh's new hypercaffeinated personality.
 
In real life, Routh is known to never shut up about Bulletproof Coffee leading to the Season 3 joke where Nate only realizes Ray's been kidnapped after a morning has passed without Ray espousing the benefits of this beverage.
 
Ray Palmer in the third season of ARROW was a deeply depressed person over the death of his fiance just as Brandon Routh was quietly miserable for years over losing his franchise. Depression doesn't always manifest in binge drinking (Jerry O'Connell) or ugly rape jokes (James Gunn) or self-detruction (David Peckinpah). Sometimes, it's just low energy, low enthusiasm, and a low sense of self-worth. And then there's the gleeful joy of a new begnning; just as Routh accepted his career had taken a backwards, Ray became a less mature but happier figure on LEGENDS and took a new path forward.
 
There's a really strong moment in Season 2 where Ray has to destroy the ATOM suit to save the day and he's trying to help Nate trigger his powers. Ray agonizes that by destroying the suit, he is destroying the only thing that makes him special -- a moment that Routh played with such heartfelt grief and loss, undoubtedly drawing on how it felt when Warner Bros. let his Superman contract expire.
 
There's also Season 3 opening with Ray, off the Wave Rider, working as an intern at a dating site and being mocked for having once been a big shot in tech. It isn't remotely realistic; Ray Palmer would have still had his profits and savings. But it's *true* -- that is how Routh felt auditioning to play Cop #3 characters after he'd played Superman. 
 
And that's why I really like Ray Palmer on LEGENDS. Ray is a man who, in losing his fiancee and his company and then the ATOM suit, lost what gave his life meaning, just as Brandon Routh lost what gave him purpose and reason for being when he lost the Superman role. And both men had to rebuild themselves and create new lives. Yes, there are some breaks with strict character continuity, but this character rings true because it's Brandon Routh's truth.

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

I will never stop being fascinated by ireactions' ability to see so much beauty in something like Ray Palmer.  But that's a really interesting story, and it makes a whole lot of sense.  What podcast did you get all this from?

Also, what is grass-fed butter?

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

Grass-fed butter means that the cows were grass fed. They usually recommend Kerrygold, which is Irish, I think. It's available everywhere and it's pretty good butter (when I first tried it, I thought it tasted almost like cheese, but I could have been having an off day).

I will admit, I tried a version of the bulletproof coffee because Routh talked about it so glowingly. I didn't spend the billion dollars on the actual brand, or the expensive coffee, but I did some research and tried to figure out how much was legit science and how much was them trying to get people to buy their specific products. Then I tried it for a while...

For me, it was gross. Putting both butter and MCT oil in the coffee was disgusting. Then it became too frothy when I blended it up, so the texture was just greasy froth, and it made me gag. There's some legit science behind the oils and all of that, but I couldn't do it. And while I tried to gag it down for a while, to see if it would give me more energy over time, and make me feel like sunshine and rainbows, it didn't really do that for me.

Maybe there's something to the name brand that I couldn't get in my version. But spending that much money on coffee would probably only make me more depressed. smile

If you want to try a super basic version of it, to get the idea, just put two tablespoons of Kerrygold butter and a couple tablespoons of unrefined coconut oil in your coffee, and blend it all together. The coconut oil isn't quite the same as pure MCT oil, but it's along the same lines.



Now I feel bad for not being able to watch Legends. Despite not liking Superman Returns, I have always gotten the impression that Routh was a good guy and there was no reason for him to not have more success (except he was tied to a horrible movie, which seems to have killed a few careers, especially since the director and one of the stars are tied to some gross sexual crime stuff). I just feel like Routh has been really let down by the writing. He came in on a weak season of Arrow, and then things got even worse with Legends. It's not his fault at all. Just like it's not Caity Lotz's fault that they ruined Sara.

As TF pointed out, Legends doesn't seem like a DC show at all. As I've said before, I get the impression that the Arrowverse writers, for the most part, have no interest in the source material, iconic characters or comic book history. Legends is the worst offender with that, aside from a few times when Arrow writers basically insulted any comic book fans who wanted to see more Green Arrow influence on Arrow.

It's frustrating when there are elements of a project that I really want to enjoy and support, but other elements that make it impossible.

Please be informed that the political, scientific, sociological, economic and legal views expressed in Informant's posts and social media accounts do not reflect any consensus of Sliders.tv.

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

This is the podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PW5jbG1Ydcc -- although I downloaded it as an MP3 using the y2mate.com YouTube to audio site.

I think combining fat and caffeine is a pretty effective way to start the day. The typical American diet is overly dependent on carbohydrates and sugar which are taxing to break down for energy with most of it being stored as fat whereas fat can be burned more directly for fuel (which is why high fat, low carb diets tend to work for weight loss). That said, I dunno that it HAS to be Bulletproof's products -- I just dissolve unsalted no name brand butter in my grocery store brand coffee. It works!

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

Maybe it'd be better with just the butter, since that's kinda like putting cream in coffee. The oil and butter together was just too much for me. It could have been the brand that I was using, or something like that. Coconut oil would probably be nicer, with the coconut flavor (still present in unrefined oil, but not in the refined oil)

In theory, I can see how it would work. Like you said, it would be used for energy pretty easily. For me, it just didn't do much. I might be a difficult case though. I'm always tired and drained. I'd love a solution that gave me tons of energy and focus.


That sounded like I'm in the market for drugs. I'm not. smile

Please be informed that the political, scientific, sociological, economic and legal views expressed in Informant's posts and social media accounts do not reflect any consensus of Sliders.tv.

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

https://www.superherohype.com/news/4273 … ver-teaser
https://www.superherohype.com/news/4274 … ver-teaser

Spoilers for the crossover if anyone cares (and I don't think anyone does).

So that's a little disappointing.  I was hoping that we'd be fully immersed in a "what if?" scenario where Barry grew up and became the Green Arrow and Oliver got the Flash powers.  I was looking forward to a fun-loving Stephen Amell and a dark and brooding Grant Gustin.

Instead, it seems like it's a body switching movie.  Which is going to be fun for a couple minutes and then (potentially) a big mess.  The crossover has been fun every year so I'm still looking forward to it, but this is not the way that I would've gone with it.

972 (edited by Slider_Quinn21 2018-11-15 09:49:08)

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

The shows have made more references to Gotham City and a couple indirect references to an Earth-1 Batman.  I hope that, at some point down the line, they let Batman on the show.

Although if they don't, I like thinking about an Arrowverse Bruce Wayne who is either too focused on Gotham to worry about reaching out to the other, more-well-known heroes, or someone who just doesn't have any interest at all in reaching out.

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

I prefer to think of Batman as someone who has kept himself aware of the Arrowverse and has decided that he doesn't want to be involved, due to creative differences. smile

I have always kind of imagined Gotham as taking place on Earth 2 though.

Please be informed that the political, scientific, sociological, economic and legal views expressed in Informant's posts and social media accounts do not reflect any consensus of Sliders.tv.

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

Informant wrote:

I have always kind of imagined Gotham as taking place on Earth 2 though.

It'd have to be a prequel to Earth 2 because Barry has Bruce on speed dial in the present.

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

New theory: Iris blocked Nora's abilities because Nora would age rapidly without the blocker. Nora removed the blocker on her own and began age rapidly. She is actually only 17 years old.

Otherwise, she is out-millennialing the millennials with her childish behavior.

Please be informed that the political, scientific, sociological, economic and legal views expressed in Informant's posts and social media accounts do not reflect any consensus of Sliders.tv.

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

The Nora stuff is sorta driving me nuts.  She's a fairly interesting character, but understanding her timeline is a bit of a fake-out since we know it'll be erased at some point.  The future where Barry is gone forever is probably not happening.

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

Jon Cryer has been cast as Lex Luthor. I haven't seen the show since season 2, so I barely know Lena. I know enough to remember that she isn't in her 50's, as her brother will now be. Also, Brenda Strong played his mother. She doesn't look like she could have a 50-something child.

The casting on Supergirl continues to baffle me.

Please be informed that the political, scientific, sociological, economic and legal views expressed in Informant's posts and social media accounts do not reflect any consensus of Sliders.tv.

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

Crazy.  I actually didn't consider that, but the ages are weird.  But I'm sure Jon Cryer can play early 40s.

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

More details have emerged about the Crossover, including confirmation that Barry and Oliver are doing a body-switching movie, essentially.  I maintain it would've been more fun if we were simply watching a story where a carefree Oliver Queen ended up as the Flash and events led to Barry Allen becoming the Green Arrow.

They've also directly answered the Batman question.  Apparently Batman has been gone for three years, and he's still regarded as a potential urban legend.  Oliver doesn't believe he exists.  Barry does.  So it's possible he showed up around the time Barry got his powers, but he didn't stay long enough to meet anyone and now he's "gone."

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

I'm not really sure what I think about this season of Arrow.

On one hand, I think it's a great celebration of the show.  I wish that there had been more returning bad guys come back for the prison sequences (even though a lot of the bad guys end up dead), but it's cool that Oliver's time in prison feels real and has weight.  I like how his absence is felt by the city itself.  The new Green Arrow could be cool as long as it's handled properly (kind of like a Sons of Batman thing - someone inspired to do good).  I even think the Diggle/Curtis/ARGUS thing feels like it makes sense, and I sorta like the Dinah/Renee disagreement on vigilantes.  I even think the flash-forward stuff is cool (still calling Earth 2, though).

That being said, I feel like there are tons of missed opportunities. 

- The Felicity stuff has been discussed.  She's become much too big a part of the show, and nothing that's happened has felt earned or warrants this much screentime.  No need to discuss.
- I don't feel like the Longbow Hunters are threatening enough.  They seem like decent-enough fighters, but nothing about them makes them seem any scarier than just regular thugs.  We're more than a handful of episodes in, and only Silencer has left any impact at all.
- I understand that, in the Arrowverse, Metahumans seem to be restricted to Central City - but I was *very* disappointed that we didn't get to see much of Level 2 at all.  And only one returning character?  I was hoping that Level 2 would be full of supervillains, especially since they're making more subtle hints that Batman exists in this universe.  Could they have thrown in someone like Poison Ivy?  Or someone like that?  We had this big bad level two, and the only real conflict was with a half-assed Hugo Strange.
- I guess the Supermax rumors weren't true.  We didn't really get anything like that.  I thought the prison break / lockdown action sequences were pretty impressive, but it didn't feel like enough to me
- Just like that, Oliver is out?  Not even a passing mention of the Suicide Squad?  We're allowed to get Batwoman, Gotham, and Nora Fries (with a Flash mention of Victor), but we can't even talk about Task Force X when it's *already been on the show*?  Oliver getting out with time served after going full Suicide Squad makes so much sense, and I have to think this was something they just weren't allowed to do.

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

There are parts of this season that are impressive, but there are also parts that just boggle my mind. Too much of the show feels like the writers didn't put any thought into it, and just went with whatever they thought would be cool.

The actual prison fight sequence this week was really impressive and well choreographed. It reminded me of season 1... and it reminded me why Oliver is better without a team of. I still don't get why we need Dina, Rene or Curtis. They're time wasters.

I have to say, I'm not a huge fan of the ARGUS stuff. I just don't think the writers have what's needed to pull off a strict government-run organization like that. It comes across (to me) as cartoonish in large doses. The writing works better with a team that is less official and less organized.

The flash-forward is a waste of time. I don't even know what we're supposed to be caring about with this story. They are dishing it out so slowly that it felt like weeks before we got anything more than veiled hints of a story, and now we have this big story with Star City in shambles and (possibly evil) Felicity (possibly) dead... and I'm still not sure what this has to do with the show that I'm tuning in to watch. The flashbacks made sense, because they were telling us how Oliver got to the point of being Green Arrow (even if the flashbacks themselves were weak after season 2). With the flash-forward... they just haven't given me a reason to be drawn into the "mystery" of that story, or how it will impact the present-day storyline. The producers have said that Roy is really *our* Roy, which would seem to debunk the alternate-universe theory.

I don't know. so far, it just seems like another excuse to make Felicity the central focus of the series. She's the one who sent the thing to William (who was apparently just forgotten in boarding school for twenty years). She's the one who set up this scavenger hunt. She's the one whose building they're searching (remember when the Flash newspaper hinted at Oliver reclaiming his family business/legacy somehow?). She's the one who possibly went evil. She's the one who is shockingly dead... Why is Oliver's son's storyline wrapped up in his step-mother, whom he lived with for less than a year? The show should just be called "Felicity"... but then it'd be confused with that other show, with the much less melodramatic lead character.

I don't get why Diaz is still a thing. The only reason that he is still alive is because people keep letting him live and escape for some reason. He's not threatening or scary, like Slade or even Adrian Chase. He doesn't have a master plan, like Malcolm Merlyn in season 1. He's just... there. And everyone is scared of him, despite the fact that they track him down and confront him in every other episode.

Level 2 really didn't make sense. Aside from the fact that Talia shouldn't have been there (sorry, I don't care how scary of a fighter she is, she's not going to be put in that prison with a bunch of the most dangerous male criminals). In the end, Level 2 seemed like a way to burn off an episode.


I think they mentioned the Suicide Squad, when they brought up Turner's history. I think they implied that it just wasn't a thing anymore. We'll just have to go with it, I suppose.


Some of the stuff in the prison was interesting. They should have focused more on Oliver in there, and less on the drama with all of the other characters who are only on screen because they're under contract. The city falling apart without him was an interesting idea, but poorly executed. I don't want to make it sound like I'm criticizing all female writers, since I think there are some who could really do this show justice (and because the men involved with the show have been just as bad), but specifically with the writers who have been running Arrow, I don't think they care about or "get" the action/superhero stuff. They focus too much on the relationship drama and the teary-eyed arguments, and the false-feeling soap opera elements. The action/superhero stuff feels like an afterthought, or something that they only do because they have to. I don't think that these showrunners are right for this show. I don't think they know when, or how, to hit hard with the story. The show would benefit from a producer who was excited about Green Arrow, and comic books and action, and all of that stuff.

This season isn't the worst that the show has ever been. It just seems like the writers are only writing it because they have to. So far, the flash-forward doesn't even have anything to do with the *actual* main character of the show.

Please be informed that the political, scientific, sociological, economic and legal views expressed in Informant's posts and social media accounts do not reflect any consensus of Sliders.tv.

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

Slider_Quinn21 wrote:

More details have emerged about the Crossover, including confirmation that Barry and Oliver are doing a body-switching movie, essentially.  I maintain it would've been more fun if we were simply watching a story where a carefree Oliver Queen ended up as the Flash and events led to Barry Allen becoming the Green Arrow.

Hadn’t been paying much attention, but the story is going to feature an Arkham Asylum doctor named John Deegan.  In the comics. Dr. John Dee is the Justice League villain Doctor Destiny who through use of his Materioptikon device is able to make dreams into reality.  He’s basically the DC version of Freddy Kruger but looks like Skeletor.  It’s not a rip off in the way one might think, though.  Destiny pre-dates those more famous ideas by twenty years or so.

They did a story in the comics where Doctor Destiny was mixing up the identities of heroes, so this crossover would play into that idea.  At the end of the day, it’s seeming like the title of the Elseworlds crossover is a bit misleading.  This doesn’t look like much of a parallel earth story beyond Supergirl and Flash.  The Monitor is involved (known for his role in Crisis on Infinite Earths), but I’m starting to think he’s only there to tease the greater story yet to come.  They did that in the comics too - Monitor was a shadowy, mysterious figure popping up in comics stories for a year before Crisis ever happened.

Something too that people tend to gloss over when talking about where this is going in the Arrowverse.  Crisis certainly was the death of the Flash; but it was the death of Supergirl too.

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

I seriously don't know what to make of Legends.  It honestly doesn't feel like a part of the Arrowverse anymore.  The team doesn't make a ton of sense, and the time travel aspect just seems to have been continued because it's been baked into the show since the beginning.

But the show is consistently fun every week.  I don't know why I watch it at all sometimes, but I almost always end the show feeling pretty good.

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

They did it again!

This season, Flash and Supergirl both have middle-aged male villains that were direct witnesses to previous finales and faced collateral damage to their families due to the hero's actions.  And now they have complete hatred of a certain group, dedicating themselves to destroying that group while wearing the mask they used at their blue-collar jobs.  Both had flashback episodes inserting themselves into previous action sequences to make them more 3-dimensional to the audience.

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

I just realized that I haven’t posted my off-the-wall Flash theory of the season.  Meta-tech?  First appearance was the cell phone hacking people’s brains.  Flashed a purple glow in their eyes.

Is the true villain of the season the Kilg%re?  He may have been able to upload himself into that satellite before it blew up; and even in the comics, the nature of Kilg%re’s powers did not require a body - he was more of a computer code / consciousness.  Kilg%re could have survived Thinker once the Thinker’s grip was released thus freeing him.

In the comics, Kilg%re ended up outgrowing humanity and their petty concerns; and his “defeat” was that he essentially left for greater things in the universe that more deserved his attention.  But Kilg%re did save the life of Flash before he left - Flash had a pretty big bullet hole in his chest thanks to Vandal Savage.

https://s3.birthmoviesdeath.com/images/made/FFKilg_re1_1050_591_81_s_c1.jpg

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

Another example of the current writers of Arrow just not getting the show they're working on:

This week, an assassin broke into Felicity and Oliver's apartment. Oliver went to fight him. Felicity went to grab her handgun. Oliver stopped in his tracks to lose his sh*t over Felicity's handgun, including asking her where she got it.

For starters, where she got it should probably have just been... the store. It wasn't a rocket launcher. It wasn't a machine gun. It wasn't even the "should be illegal because it looks scary" AR-15.

Second, Oliver wouldn't react like that. He just wouldn't. It was a reaction born from the mind of someone who doesn't know guns (most people who freak out at the sight of a gun are reacting out of ignorance. Those who know weapons see guns in much the same way they'd see a hammer. It's a tool).

Oliver has tried training Felicity to defend herself on several occasions, and has failed at it. Someone in Oliver's shoes would *expect* his wife to own a gun, because it is the only way she would be able to defend herself against a normal attacker, much less a supervillain.

By this point, Felicity should be very well trained in how to use a gun, so there's no reason why Oliver should freak out. She sure as hell wasn't a pacifist before he went to prison. Maybe season 1 Felicity wouldn't own a gun. Season 2 Felicity probably would have.

That said, the way she was handling the gun was horrible. They should have had someone on set to teach her how to handle the gun, so that Felicity didn't look like an actress stumbling around holding a gun.


This isn't a pro-gun/anti-gun issue. These people regularly waged war in the middle of the city and mowed bad guys down on a nightly basis. We're way beyond that debate as far as the show is concerned. What this is about is the fact that the writers aren't capable of thinking of Oliver as a warrior, because they don't understand that mindset. They can't wrap their mind around Felicity pulling a gun, because that is something that would absolutely shock the crap out of the writers themselves, in their own lives. They are writing a show about a vigilante who just got out of prison because he's killed a bunch of people, freaking out over the fact that his wife just pulled a handgun on a guy who was literally trying to murder them in their own home... WHILE OLIVER WAS FREAKING OUT!

With probably 90% of TV characters, the gun freakout works. That's because 90% of TV characters are just regular people, with liberal politics, and they don't want anything to do with guns. When you play that card on a show like this, it's just comedic.


Sorry. It's a peeve of mine. I know that the writers want to play guns from their point of view, because they don't want the "wrong" message to get across. But it's not good writing. I'm not saying this because of my political views, and I hope that this doesn't turn into some political debate, because that's not the point.

They could have played a similar note, if Oliver said that if they're caught with a gun in their apartment, he could be sent back to prison. But they didn't even hint at that, so I'm not going to bother with that angle.


Also, I still don't care about the flash forward. Honestly, I'm sick of Felicity in the present. The fact that we know *know* she's still getting the spotlight 20 years from now doesn't help my interest in the show.

Please be informed that the political, scientific, sociological, economic and legal views expressed in Informant's posts and social media accounts do not reflect any consensus of Sliders.tv.

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

TemporalFlux wrote:

I just realized that I haven’t posted my off-the-wall Flash theory of the season.  Meta-tech?  First appearance was the cell phone hacking people’s brains.  Flashed a purple glow in their eyes. Is the true villain of the season the Kilg%re?

On the subject of Temporal Flux's theories, I remain absolutely convinced that HR of Season 3 was indeed the so-futuristic-his-powers-seem-magical villain Abra Kadabra. I realize that we've been through Season 4 and are now in Season 5 and at this point, barely anyone even remembers HR -- but I still feel certain that any week now, we'll be getting an episode where HR reveals he faked his death and he is indeed Abra Kadabra. Maybe even in the ELSEWORLDS crossover. Temporal Flux will be proven right. It's coming. I feel confident. I feel sure. I felt sure last season too.

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

Does anyone think there's a chance that the flash forwards aren't really the future, and young William has been kidnapped and hooked up to some wacky machine in order to help someone infliltrate Felicity's world? (I say Felicity because Oliver appears to be totally irrelevant to that storyline)

I'm just trying to figure out how, without using time travel, these flash forwards could possibly add anything useful to the series. I still don't see a point in them. It seems like a lot of filler, to give other actors more time off.

Please be informed that the political, scientific, sociological, economic and legal views expressed in Informant's posts and social media accounts do not reflect any consensus of Sliders.tv.

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

Informant wrote:

Does anyone think there's a chance that the flash forwards aren't really the future, and young William has been kidnapped and hooked up to some wacky machine in order to help someone infliltrate Felicity's world? (I say Felicity because Oliver appears to be totally irrelevant to that storyline)

Yup! And it’s likely HR Wells holding William in this dream world and HR will reveal himself as being Abra Kadabra. Any day now. Temporal Flux is always right about such things.

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

I know they said it's "our" Roy, but I'm still very confident that it's Earth 2.

And did you guys notice that Smallville's Green Arrow showed up in the Earth 90 scene?  If they're going to introduce a version of Barry Allen that doesn't look like Grant Gustin, I'd love a Smallville crossover.

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

Team ups are already happening off screen!

http://www.kryptonsite.com/stephen-amel … rosenbaum/

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

I wonder where the writers are going with having Thawne address Nora as "Dawn," the name of Barry's daughter in the comic books. Is it simply a nod to the source material while noting that, in this version of the timeline, Barry naming his daughter after his murdered mother makes more sense? Or is it a hint that Nora isn't who she claims to be?

**

So, how do we feel about THE FLASH in Season 5? I think it isn't terrible and it isn't great, creating a muted version of what made the first two seasons strong, dodging most of the weaknesses of Season 3 but largely missing the strengths of Season 4. Season 1 created a wide and ominous sense of myth around Barry's destiny and future; Season 4 has brought in Nora, but despite her establishing Barry's future disappearance, there hasn't been much action on trying to prevent it, so the danger and peril is somewhat lacking.

Season 2 had a truly disturbing villain in Zoom and Season 4 did a great job of having Barry face a villain whose threat wasn't in speed but rather intelligence. Season 5 has brought in Cicada -- and Cicada, despite a tragic backstory, is simply a thug with a magic knife.

Seasons 3 - 4 brought in new characters with HR and Ralph as comic relief; Season 5 has introduced Nora and she's not terrible but not great. The show has done some interesting things with Barry and Iris finding themselves parents before having produced any actual children, but Nora's a mixed bag. There are some episodes where she's a splendid character and student under Barry and some where her whininess towards Iris is just obnoxious.

Season 3 began the approach of having Tom Cavanagh play everything for laughs, losing the menace and wisdom of his Season 1 - 2 incarnations. Season 4 has found an average point between Cavanagh being a joke and being useful; Sherloque Wells has one of Cavanagh's terrible accents but is being scripted as an actual character.

Ultimately, Season 5 has found a gentle midpoint between the extremes of previous seasons and is therefore extremely middling. I sometimes wonder how we'd feel if we'd gotten to Season 5 of SLIDERS with Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt, Arturo, Vancouver filming and Tracy Torme still on the series; can you imagine feeling that alt-universe concepts are a bit played out, that the original foursome have run out of interesting conflicts and arguments and that a desperate shakeup is in order? I can't, but I wonder if it'd be anything like Season 5 of THE FLASH.

**

I've been pretty happy with Arrow for Seasons 5 - 6 and 7 is turning out well enough. SUPERGIRL seemed to hit a rough patch last year when they threw Andrew Kreisberg out of the studio (and probably lost his scripts and stories as well), but has rebounded nicely this year. LEGENDS remains funny. THE FLASH is acceptably mediocre.

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

To be fair, I enjoy all the shows.  I'm not hate-watching any of them.  I still think it's a little bizarre that Supergirl has stayed on Earth 38, but maybe some of this Crisis-level stuff will end with them all on one merged Earth.  At times, Supergirl doesn't really feel like a part of the Arrowverse, and I think that's strange, if only because I think the worlds mesh really well when they're combined.

I think Flash is fine.  The problem is that they've really boxed themselves in a few places.  Barry and Iris are together so they're not really able to work with that angle anymore.  Caitlin's character has been muddled so much that I'm not 100% what's up with her and Killer Frost (at this point, there doesn't seem to be much, if any, difference in the "separate" characters).  Cisco is fun but they don't do a ton with him, especially now that Gypsy is gone, and any other romance plot will probably follow a similar line.  We all feel like the Tom Cavanaugh situation isn't sustainable.  And with villains, they have this weird line they walk where they don't really know how to do action sequences with the Flash.  If it's a speed villain, the "action sequences" end up being CGI races.  If it's a non-speed villain, the plan has either been to power-up the guy (DeVoe) or power down the heroes (Cicada). 

But even then, I don't think Season Five has really established why Cicada is a threat.  He's literally wounded, and he doesn't have a backstory that indicates that he'd be an incredible fighter.  I don't seen any reason why Oliver couldn't beat him fairly easily.  I'm also not 100% sure why Barry didn't drag Cicada 1000 miles away once his spear was taken away.  Everyone just sorta stood around until he got it back, even when they knew it was coming back.  The Killer Frost solution is good for the characterization on the show, but in story, to not even try Oliver is weird.  And now with the crossover, to not use Kara or Clark is weird (as their powers are, also, not related to Dark Matter).

I agree with your thoughts on Arrow, Legends, and Supergirl.  They're all watchable and fun, if not deep or outstanding in any way.

************************

I only watched the first part of the crossover, but I thought it was interesting.  I still wish that it wasn't a body-switching thing.  I feel like, for some reason, they want this to be impactful.  There were still references to Cicada and Oliver going to prison and Kara quitting the DEO, and it seems like this "darkness in Barry" is something that might play out at some point down the line.  Also, I don't know if this is intentional, but it seems that Iris really doesn't like Oliver (if not outright hates him).  Is that something that's been played with before?

But, honestly, I don't think these episodes even really need to be in continuity.  It's why I was really hoping for some sort of "Elseworld" story where Oliver's parents never died and he ended up with speed.  And maybe instead of ending up with the Wests, Barry ends up an orphan who ends up on Lian Yu.  If they wanted to do Batwoman stuff, have him end up with the Waynes (they adopt Barry after their son Bruce was killed by a gunman in an alley).

I think that way, they wouldn't have to worry about any sort of continuity, and they could've had a lot of fun with it.  They could've even played around with some of the other characters.  Imagine Cisco as Speedy, Caitlin as a Black Canary, etc.  Then imagine Felicity as Killer Frost, Diggle as Vibe.  Maybe you bring back Lance in the Joe role, or you bring back Merlyn as the Wells/Thawne role.

That's sorta the fun of Elseworlds stories to me.  So the Monitor changes everything, and either Supergirl comes to investigate, or you throw her into the mix too (maybe it's Kara who was adopted by the Waynes - heck, maybe she's the Batwoman).

The way they did it was a bit lazy, I think.  Still fun.  But lazy.

Although it was basically all forgiven when I heard "Somebody saaaaaaaaaavvvvveeee me" with that overhead shot of Smallville and the Kent Farm.  They get it.

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

Legends.

What the heck is this show?  I had a lot of fun with "Legends of To-meow-meow" and it's *insanely* clear that the actors on the show had fun with it.  This is a show that, essentially, has no rules now.  They don't really exist in the Arrowverse anymore, to the point where Nate writes off calls from Barry, Oliver, and Kara as "the annual crossover."  They do time travel still because it gives them the excuse to dress up in fun costumes and occasionally cast someone as a famous historical figure.

But even inside their own universe....what is this show?  The Time Bureau is now an official place with an official building that appears to sanctioned by the American government and food couriers can simply walk into.  And yet the Time Bureau is now tasked with hunting down and capturing magical creatures.  Their A-Team is now the Legends, although I'm not sure we ever see a B-Team anymore (when, last year, the Legends were the Z-Team).

Not only that....I don't really understand what the Time Bureau is even capable of.  Legends of To-meow-meow revolves around Charlie and Constantine going back and altering the timeline to try and have their cake (Des lives, Charlie is a shapeshifter) and eat it too.  They do the one thing they're not supposed to do (rule 1 of time travel is you don't interfere with times in your own life), and it ends up with all kinds of wacky consequences.

But if the Time Bureau cannot detect changes to the timeline (so they can go back and fix them), then what the heck is their purpose?  What are all those people running around doing, and if they're all handling magical creatures, what were they doing before the magical creatures took over their lives?  Didn't the Time Masters exist outside the timeline so that they could sense when the timeline was altered?

This season has made it perfectly clear that this show 1) doesn't matter in the grander scheme of the Arrowverse and so 2) zaniness is their calling card and they can play it whenever they want.  And within the confines of a 42-minute show, I think it's a blast.

But what is it?  Is it supposed to be anything concrete, or is it just what it is whenever it's on?

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

TemporalFlux wrote:

Comics have really become too expensive; I’m surprised there are still as many collectors as there are.  When I was growing up in the early to mid 80’s, comics were 60 cents each at the drug store / gas station / grocery, and the comics were largely self contained stories that you could read just the one issue and have a satisfying experience.  To put that in perspective, a comic cost you about as much as a regular size candy bar.

Today, the cover price on a comic is $3.99 on most.  You could buy three to four regular candy bars for that.  Plus, today’s comics are often giving you only a part of the story.  Sometimes it’s half a story; sometimes only 1/6th of a story.  Of course, you can do mail order comics to get a discount (usually changing that $3.99 to $2.39), but even that is over twice what they should cost.

Comics are by design 32 pages of disposable enjoyment that last about as long as that candy bar.  You would get much more for your money buying a DVD out of the 5 dollar bin at Wal-Mart. I just don’t see how it’s attractive to people any longer.  It’s certainly not pulling in kids.

It’s as the ancient saying goes: “Give someone a superhero comic book and you entertain them for ten minutes. Teach someone to live without superhero comics and you save them from a lifetime of materialism and poverty.”

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

Watched Part 2 of Elseworlds.

I'm still not hugely into this (again, probably more because I would've done it differently - which I know I need to let go), but I think it's been a pretty fun series.  After their Smallville Easter Eggs, it was fun to get a couple of fun ones with the 90s Flash.  The biggest one, IMO, was 90s Barry thinking that John was a Green Lantern.  They've teased that for a while, and I'd love to get a mini-arc on that.  I don't know if they could consistently do a convincing Green Lantern on the CW, but I'd love to see them try.  Maybe John gets the ring, uses it a bit, and then has to pass it on to someone else when he realizes he can't leave Earth full time (and bring in someone like a Guy Gardner for a cameo).

There were also a TON of fun Gotham-related Easter Eggs.  I sorta like the idea that Bruce has been gone and left Kate Kane in charge.  I also like that it appears that Wayne Enterprises is down the tubes (joining both Queen Industries and PalmerTech) in his absence.  The fun little nods to all the villains in Arkham was cool, although I felt the Nora Fries cameo was a bit of a waste.  I guess they took what they could get and got Amell's wife on the show.

I also liked the nods to Batman of Earth 38.  When they kept talking about Batman, I was surprised that Kara wasn't speaking up since she knows who he is.  But then she did.  She's pretty good at keeping secrets, I guess.

Looking forward to part 3.

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

Slider_Quinn21 wrote:

Legends.

What the heck is this show?  I had a lot of fun with "Legends of To-meow-meow" and it's *insanely* clear that the actors on the show had fun with it.  This is a show that, essentially, has no rules now.  They don't really exist in the Arrowverse anymore, to the point where Nate writes off calls from Barry, Oliver, and Kara as "the annual crossover."  They do time travel still because it gives them the excuse to dress up in fun costumes and occasionally cast someone as a famous historical figure.

But even inside their own universe....what is this show?  The Time Bureau is now an official place with an official building that appears to sanctioned by the American government and food couriers can simply walk into.  And yet the Time Bureau is now tasked with hunting down and capturing magical creatures.  Their A-Team is now the Legends, although I'm not sure we ever see a B-Team anymore (when, last year, the Legends were the Z-Team).

Not only that....I don't really understand what the Time Bureau is even capable of.  Legends of To-meow-meow revolves around Charlie and Constantine going back and altering the timeline to try and have their cake (Des lives, Charlie is a shapeshifter) and eat it too.  They do the one thing they're not supposed to do (rule 1 of time travel is you don't interfere with times in your own life), and it ends up with all kinds of wacky consequences.

But if the Time Bureau cannot detect changes to the timeline (so they can go back and fix them), then what the heck is their purpose?  What are all those people running around doing, and if they're all handling magical creatures, what were they doing before the magical creatures took over their lives?  Didn't the Time Masters exist outside the timeline so that they could sense when the timeline was altered?

This season has made it perfectly clear that this show 1) doesn't matter in the grander scheme of the Arrowverse and so 2) zaniness is their calling card and they can play it whenever they want.  And within the confines of a 42-minute show, I think it's a blast.

But what is it?  Is it supposed to be anything concrete, or is it just what it is whenever it's on?

The behind the scenes reason for some of the peculiarities of this episode -- LEGENDS needed to offer some rationale for why the LEGENDS characters weren't involved in ELSEWORLDS, so they had the Legends as we know them erased from existence for a week. Due to a shorter episode order this season shortening their schedule and actor availabilities, LEGENDS couldn't schedule the shutdown days needed to participate in the crossover and still complete their full 16 episodes.

You'll recall that the first crossover, INVASION, featured Oliver, Barry and Kara prominently in the first installment only to reduce them to glimpses and cameos with the next three episodes. Production filmed all episodes of INVASION within a week, within the normal one-episode-a-week schedule, and it was impossible to film any more material with the core three actors within a single week. Recognizing this issue, CRISIS ON EARTH-X set up a different schedule where they filmed all four installments over the course of a month, scheduling days where the shows would stop production and devote their resources entirely to the crossover, so each show produced one episode when they would normally have made four. LEGENDS couldn't do that this year.

From a creative standpoint -- the characterization of this LEGENDS episode made absolutely no sense. I confess that the fuzzy logic of LEGENDS is a constant; after three seasons of the Wave Rider operating on some sort of zero-point, self-renewing fuel source with a fabricator for all food and materials and items, they're suddenly worried about an accountant performing an audit of their budget? The replacements for the Time Masters, a force that existed outside the timestream in the distant future, is now a branch of the US federal government? All fine and good, but suggesting that Nate and Ray or Sarah and Gideon would go on homicidal rampages over the deaths of teammates is absurd. They've lost teammates before: Professor Stein, Rip Hunter, Leonard Snart -- so the idea that losing anyone in Season 4 would turn the survivors into murdering lunatics is a non-starter.

It's at this point that the logic of the episode seemed to degrade, almost as though some cataclysm of reality in the distant future involving a dimensionally detached scientist and his efforts to combine realities had reached backwards into the past, breaking sense and reason itself within the universe and causing the boys or the girls to become an absurd parody of 80s genre schlock -- but it's more likely that this was the result of Dr. John Deegan scrambling reality with the Book of Destiny and causing such havoc that even the Time Bureau couldn't detect or contain the damage.

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

ireactions wrote:

but it's more likely that this was the result of Dr. John Deegan scrambling reality with the Book of Destiny and causing such havoc that even the Time Bureau couldn't detect or contain the damage.

I hadn't thought of this.  I'm cool with this explanation and forgive the show.

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

I stumbled onto this today....is this you, Informant?!!? big_smile

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJe5KHfOtlM

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

I don't see why it's unreasonable for Deegan to repeatedly overpower Superman -- Deegan clearly rewrote reality to be stronger than the real Superman.

I also think that we should probably ascribe any and every continuity error ever to Deegan's interference with reality.

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

Well, I enjoyed the crossover plenty. Body swap stories are always difficult for me because I can slightly detach from the story, pondering: wouldn't this scene work better if Grant Gustin were playing Oliver and Stephen Amell were playing Barry? But then you'd lose the image of the actors swapping costumes. Etc.. I liked the part where Barry defeated a superspeeding Oliver by bending over. Bitsie Tulloch was great as Lois but a little too great -- her every scene was so mannered in every line, trying to pack seasons of characterization into 1 - 2 sentences to establish her role. It was great to see Tyler Hoechlin back as Superman and I liked how the yellow accents on the costume are now gold which makes it a complement to the blue rather than a contrast.

It was painful to see how that god-awful Flash costume this year hangs so loosely on Stephen Amell's neck, even more loosely than on Grant's body. Dear God, what happened?

The Anti-Monitor's plan of trying to kill the very heroes he needs as champions was nonsensical. Ruby Rose was awesome as Batwoman. Melissa Benoist had great chemistry with everybody. The Arkham Asylum action sequence was incomprehensible with all the prisoners being released and the superspeeding Oliver inexplicably running away, leaving John to secure the prisoners, leaving Deegan to escape in order to do... what? Oliver vanishes and then returns to put all the prisoners back in their cells. Where was he? Why did he let John struggle and possibly fail to accomplish what Oliver could have done in seconds? Why did he allow Deegan to escape? And are we to believe that Cisco could get hit by a van and be running around a minute later?

I dunno. It was fun. It was full of logical difficulties even with Deegan's reality warping offering some flexible logic. I liked the part where Oliver yelled at Barry that Barry would be unable to function without his wife and his team giving him a motivational speech once every nine hours and when Oliver yelped that he couldn't stand to hug Barry ever again and that twice was enough for a lifetime.

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

I thought, overall, it was fine.  I did agree with the podcast that I posted in the sense that it did feel like a setup more than a complete story.  Some quick thoughts:

- The Flash suit did look terrible on Amell.  I wonder if they thought it looked terrible too.  If they did, it wouldn't have been out of the realm of possibility to put him in an older version of the suit that might've looked better (if it is, indeed, the chin strap).

- I was actually surprised by the Deegan-as-Superman reveal.  I thought he'd just created an evil Superman to get rid of Oliver and Barry.  I also liked his "My name is John Deegan...." intro.  I also liked the Barry-as-Oliver one for the Arrow episode.  I was just sad that we didn't get a Oliver-as-Barry intro.  I feel like they could've restructured the opening to allow that.

- So did Deegan change anything else the first time around besides swapping Oliver and Barry?  Was there any other indication that anything else was different?  Because it seems weird that Deegan, who seemed to have some (at least to him) altruistic goals thought that he could fix the world by swapping the Flash and Green Arrow.  He didn't really seem like he knew that'd happen, and it definitely didn't seem like he had a plan for them if he did.  Were Deegan's changes only in his own little world at Arkham, and Oliver/Barry were side-effects?  Or maybe tampering from the Monitor, since they're the only ones who remember their true selves?

- Was Deegan responsible for Bruce Wayne leaving?  If so, is that still canon?

- So did the Monitor kill Earth 90 Barry?  Or did he just send him back to his world?

- Did the Monitor not consider it cheating that Earth 1 used multiple heroes from another Earth to defeat Deegan?  If this was a test of Earth 1, they really didn't win on their own.

- I really like this version of Superman, despite what that podcast guy thought.  I don't think he honestly doesn't think that the world needs him or that Kara is so much stronger than him.  Throughout the series, especially in Season One, he was acting as a guide and mentor.  I think he's still trying to build her up, more than anything.  It's a little weird that she just accepts it when he says stuff like that.  You'd think she'd have a more humble reaction, but maybe she knows what he's doing and doesn't want to make him feel bad.

- How did James Olsen end up on Earth 1?  Deegan only knew about Kara and Clark because they fought Amazo.  James never showed up.  Does this mean that James exists on Earth 1, or does it not really mean anything?

- Same question but with Alex.

- Crisis on Infinite Earths - I wonder if this is, partly, the Arrowverse realizing that they're not going to make it to 2024.  Because the Flash is still, *this season* working off the newspaper clipping from Season One.  Is this going to be separate from that?  Or is the timeline getting moved up, possibly as a result of something Nora is going to do?  If so, the newspaper hasn't updated (like it did with Iris' name).

And I'm interested in seeing what happens with Oliver.  We were teased with TF's thought in Part 3 - both Barry and Kara were supposed to die, and they're the ones who die in the original Crisis.  Obviously Oliver made some sort of deal with the Monitor to die in their place - but does that mean that Arrow won't get renewed?  Or would they really be able to kill off Oliver mid-season, possibly on an episode of a different series?  If they announce that Arrow is going to only be 11 episodes next season, won't that be a pretty big tip-off that something is going to happen?  Or would they actually try and do a final half-season of Arrow without Oliver on it?

(I'm guessing that Oliver did make a deal, but like Sam and Dean do all the time, he'll either get out with some other consequences or he'll die and then come back somehow).

If this were a few years ago, I'd have faith that there was going to be a unified plan from the whole Arrowverse team.  But I'm a little worried in recent seasons that there isn't as much control at the top as there used to be.

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

Slider_Quinn21 wrote:

I stumbled onto this today....is this you, Informant?!!? big_smile

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJe5KHfOtlM


Hahaha... no. He was nicer than me.


I hate to sound like a broken record, but it once again seemed to me like the writers don't actually care about these stories or characters. I've been rewatching Eureka lately. It's an absurd show, filled with nonsense and insanity, from the Scifi Channel (and probably a low budget) but everyone involved was so committed to that universe that it never felt fake. I was never left wondering why characters would do incredibly stupid (yet convenient for the writers) things without anyone commenting on it, and I never really thought that the emotions were false, even when it was completely unrealistic.

The problem that I had with Elseworlds from the very beginning was one of my biggest peeves in lazy writing. The fact that a simple conversation would instantly clear up the misunderstanding. Why wouldn't Oliver just tell Iris that he wasn't Barry? And that decision snowballed into this insane plot where nobody believed Oliver and Barry, despite the fact that Cisco would probably have a body-swap preparation kit tucked under his desk at all times. There was no reason for any of them to doubt Barry and Oliver. And to top it off, even if they didn't believe them, again, a simple conversation would clear it up. "Okay 'Barry', where did you first confess your love for Iris?" Oliver wouldn't know that.

And yeah, you could say that it's all because the lazy plot device made it happen, but there was no indication that their actual memories of Barry and Oliver were altered, or that they were programmed to not trust them (as evidenced by their later reversal on this point). It was just convenient writing, for the sake of a chuckle and getting the script written.

The whole crossover event was like this. It was a concept, not a plot. And there were many ways in which that concept could have been turned into a legit and solid plot, but apparently it wasn't a priority. So instead, we're stuck with countless minutes of characters trying to sound as though these plot holes and contradictions make sense, but they really don't.


100% of this fail is the writers. I don't blame the actors. They are all solid in their roles. They have great chemistry. They managed to make me smile through the delivery of their lines, even while the writing failed them at every corner.


You'd think I went into this wanting to hate it and expecting to write this post. I actually didn't. I was stupid. I made it a whole big thing in my head. I saved all three episodes, so I could watch them as one big event. And after all of that, I couldn't do it. I got through two episodes and I had to step away for a while.



I really didn't feel anything about Batwoman either way. I thought she was a bit forced and some of her scenes were clunky, but she didn't leave enough of an impression for me to really like or dislike her.

I continue to say that this version of Superman is horrible. Miscast (and again, I like the actor in other roles, and have since he was a kid in Road to Perdition) and just horrible all around. And they made the mistake of calling back to Smallville. There is nothing as jarring as using the iconic Smallville shots, and the theme music, cutting to the iconic Smallville Kent farm... and seeing this mess of an adaptation in the place of Tom Welling. Tom had so much strength and presence in that role that you looked at him and saw Clark Kent/Superman. Tyler just doesn't.

And while I think that this Superman is poorly done, that opinion pales in comparison to my views on this Lois Lane. I hated her so much that I was disappointed when Superman managed to save her toward the end. The problem is, she didn't have a lot to do here, and what little time she had to be a presence in the Arrowverse, they wasted on political bullsh*t. Lois Lane is an iconic, strong, powerful, smart, kick-ass woman. They don't need to make her a shrill feminist, whining about the pay gap and quoting statistics regarding the superiority of women. They should have spent that time making her look like a strong, powerful, smart, kick-ass woman. Maybe have her interact with Iris and show Iris what this life looks like after so many years (though I'm not sure that we're supposed to remember how long Clark is supposed to have been at this, or how old Lois should be).

Lois managed to achieve in these short episodes what Felicity took years of groundwork to accomplish. And again, it's lazy writing. In the minds of these writers, having Lois throw in these political comments makes her looks tough and smart. To me, it looked like they didn't want to put in the work and build an actual character, so they used a generic template.

The Supergirl line about the villain guy being too afraid to be a woman was just cringe-worthy. It took what seemed like five minutes of forced dialogue to get to that line, and it didn't even make sense.


Okay, now I need to step off the hate train and discuss plot and characters in a more fanboy way...


Am I wrong in thinking that they've established that Alex and James exist on Earth-1? I assumed that they didn't, because none of the other Arrowverse characters exist on whatever Earth Supergirl is on, but it seems like they (and Batman) exist on both worlds. Could this play a part in the Crisis next year, and the shows possibly merging universes? Will they kill off the "real" Alex and Jimmy? I don't watch Supergirl, so I don't know how they set up Argo City. Would Clark and Lois be in any way protected from such a merge by being there?

Barry, Oliver and Kara really are fun to watch together. It reminds me of the old days with Oliver, Diggle and Felicity in a lot of ways. The fact that there's no romantic drama or anything like that makes that relationship more entertaining and less stressful. And while I know that we're talking about a yearly visit vs 23 episodes per season, it just made me realize how forced Arrow has become lately. Every scene and every line feels like it's being dragged into the episode against its will, at a point when the series should be writing itself.

The high point of the crossover was by far the way they styled Killer Frost's hair. The wig is usually iffy, but this look really worked for her.

Did they stop referring to Diggle as "Diggle" because they wanted to build up this Green Lantern thing? Is that why he is always "John" now? Because that has really been distracting me for the last couple of seasons.



I wonder if I should just cut and run. I feel like I'm such a downer in these discussions, because it feels like I rarely have anything nice to say about these shows anymore. I want to like them. I used to like them. I don't think that The Flash is nearly as bad as last season. I just wonder if I'm adding anything to the conversation, or if I'm just making it harder for everyone else to be excited about the shows they like.

With the Marvel movies, I've more or less stopped commenting after I watch them. Maybe I'll try that here.


With Titans having finished their season, I think I might sign up for the free trial of the DC Universe and try that after Christmas/New Year. So for anyone who has seen that one... does it just feel like the Arrowverse, or does it feel like something else?

Please be informed that the political, scientific, sociological, economic and legal views expressed in Informant's posts and social media accounts do not reflect any consensus of Sliders.tv.

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

You can quit watching if you want, of course, but I don't think your negativity has any effect on the rest of us.  I like reading your comments, positive or negative smile

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

Tyler Hoechlin's Superman is great; he's just not the Superman whom Informant wants to see. Informant has an extremely particular vision of Superman based on the 1986 John Byrne reboot and the SMALLVILLE series. Prior to 1986, Superman was the alien inheritor of the legacy of Krypton's culture and technology who disguised himself as Clark Kent for what looked like a bizarre sociological experiment.

Given that Informant threw a fit over one line of dialogue where Hoechlin's Superman referred to English as "your language," I think it's safe to say he wouldn't enjoy this version of Superman.

Pre-1970, there wasn't a lot of thought put into WHY Superman pretended to be Clark beyond (a) positioning himself at the Daily Planet to catch news of emergencies that needed Superman and (b) giving Superman a vulnerable human persona so readers could relate to him. Elliot S! Maggin, the primary Superman writer of the 1970s, took the view that Superman enjoyed living as Clark the way cosplayers enjoy dressing up as Superman; Superman found civilian life thrilling. But there were a lot of challenges with this character and that led to the 1986 reboot.

The 1986 reboot Superman determinedly does *not* see himself as Kal-El of Krypton, son of Jor-El. He thinks of himself as Clark Kent, son of Jonathan and Martha. The reboot goes so far as to say Kryptonians don't have sex but harvest sperm and eggs to be formulated in a mechanical "matrix" which only completed 'birthing' Clark after the pod landed in Kansas. Clark only discovers his Kryptonian origins at age 36 from a holographic Jor-El. "I may have been conceived out there in the depths of space," says Clark, "but I was born when the rocket opened on Earth, in America."

He respects his Kryptonian heritage and the hologram uploads a vast databank of Kryptonian knowledge into his brain, but this character is distinctly Clark Kent with Superman being his disguise. This version was certainly a much stronger *character* in contrast to the complex, alien, unknowable Superman before 1986. Since the reboot, every film and TV adaptation has gravitated to the Kansas farmboy version.

But it is untrue to claim that Clark of Kansas is only acceptable version of this character. The original was good enough for 48 years and created a media empire that continues to this day. Both versions of the character have their advantages and disadvantages. At times, Informant blowing a gasket over Superman being presented as a strange visitor from another world reminds me of John Rhys-Davies having a tantrum over not seeing himself in how Arturo is written.

Tyler Hoechlin's Superman is neither lacking in strength nor devoid of presence -- he just isn't strong or present in the ways that Informant wants, but all of Superman's actors have had their strengths and weaknesses.

Christopher Reeve played the alien Superman and he exuded warmth, charisma and he had the physicality to convince you that he was flying instead of dangling from wires, but his Clark was such a bundle of comical mannerisms that it made him seem sociopathic and self-torturing in his desire to live as a belittled incompetent who annoyed the people around him. Any time Reeve's Superman or Clark interact with anybody -- Lois, Jimmy, Perry, strangers -- there's a situational falseness that isn't part of Reeve's performance.

This culminated in KILL BILL II: the villain remarked that Clark Kent's clumsy unassertiveness looked like Superman's contemptuous critique of all human beings. This leaves one wondering why Superman bothers to protect us at all. It is the primary weakness of the pre-1986 Superman and why the reboot reversed nearly all of these characteristics.

Dean Cain's Clark Kent was the 1986 Clark. Cain had a superhuman grace, charm and politeness that was truthful, allowing this Clark to have emotional arcs and actual relationships. However, his Superman was awkward. To differentiate Clark from Superman, Cain's Superman was simply Clark with Cain suppressing all his natural mannerisms and clearly feeling awkward and silly in his costume.

It's noticeable that Cain's Clark is a full-bodied performance while his Superman never quite knows how tall to stand or how to move with the cape or where to hold his hands. Thankfully, Superman was at most a cameo role in a show where Clark was the leading man. And this is the main failing of the post-1986 Superman: there is no distinction between Clark Kent and Superman, undermining the plausibility of Clark going unrecognized and failing to create any meaningful conflict involving Superman's dual-identity because, in terms of characterization, he doesn't have one.

Tom Welling was unusual in that Welling isn't much of an actor. Welling played himself onscreen and his Clark exuded Tom's own warmth, care and kindness matched with Tom's incredible physical presence. As a male model and amateur athlete, Welling had Reeve's ability to convey superhuman powers through his natural body language. Welling is the sort of person who spends his free time going to toy stores, buying out their inventory and sitting quietly in his living room wrapping them one-by-one and then driving them to various children's charities before Christmas. Welling reportedly earned no salary on the SMALLVILLE series finale, redistributing his pay to offer Michael Rosenbaum a bigger paycheque to win him for two days of filming.

Welling's personality was perfectly in sync with his character (although not always with the writing which made Clark seem selfish and indifferent). He also did a great job with performing the withdrawn and solitary Clark Kent in contrast to his Red Kryptonite affected persona and his alternate universe double, both of whom had a swaggering, dominant physicality that the usual Clark didn't.

When watching him onscreen in Seasons 1, 8, 9 and 10, the truth of his performance overcomes his weaknesses as a performer -- which are many. His perfect screen presence is marred by a lack of technical ability as an actor. His enunciation can be awkward such as his inability to pronounce "vigilante." His reactions to events and other actors are muted. He performs poorly with post-filming special effects; note his blankness when conversing with onscreen doubles and see that Tom cannot pretend he isn't looking at a tennis ball on a string.

Over time, this was finessed into his Clark being a thoughtful, low-key personality and it added a beautiful gentleness to his persona as he supersped into burning buildings, gunfights and car wrecks. Tom Welling and the SMALLVILLE special effects team made saving people look exciting and awe-inspiring and conveyed Clark's power and compassion.

And this is where the Brandon Routh Superman crashed hard. SUPERMAN RETURNS has no combat; Superman spends the film saving people just like Clark on SMALLVILLE, but SUPERMAN RETURNS directed in such a dull, unexciting fashion that there's almost no visceral intensity aside from the plane crash. Brandon Routh, as directed, was asked to play Superman and Clark Kent as the same low-key, quiet personality, much like Welling, but with far less scripting.

In fact, Routh was so underwritten in SUPERMAN RETURNS that it's hard to understand why this Clark Kent works at a newspaper (can't he get news of emergencies on a smartphone?) or even bothers with a civilian identity (the only person Clark has a relationship with is his mother). While Routh has the physicality to convince that he's superhuman, it's noticeable that where Reeve and Welling could shift between personas, Routh needs the blue contact lenses, S-curl hairstyle, costume and wire effects to be Superman. In SUPERMAN RETURNS, Routh might as well be a CG animatic considering how little personality the script provided him to perform. Routh's Superman is a blank slate.

In contrast, Henry Cavill in MAN OF STEEL is filled with personality, arguably personality enough for five separate movies. He's the teenager itching to flee his small town; he's the wandering nomad keeping his distance from others; he's the guilt-tormented son who let his father die; he's the humble inheritor to the legacy of Jor-El; he's the god who surrenders to humanity in order to defend them. Kal-El of Krypton, Clark Kent of Kansas and Superman the superhero are different combinations of all these personas, but Cavill is quite definitive that he is from Kansas.

The 1986 incarnation of Superman began shifting towards this multi-faceted identity in 2000 as Superman began to explore his Kryptonian heritage more while identifying as American. The change cemented fully in 2006 with writers Kurt Busiek and Geoff Johns fully committing to the multi-identity situation. This version of Superman is less likely to default to American culture and seeks to balance his alien and human heritage. This led to a brief arc where Superman renounced his American citizenship and Informant had that nervous breakdown with him shrieking pre-MAN OF STEEL that Henry Cavill couldn't possibly play Superman because Cavill was a foreigner.

It was a dark time for SLIDERS fandom. I like to think we made it through, and now we come to Tyler Hoechlin. Hoechlin is playing a very different Superman from the previous actors. Reeve, Welling, Routh and Cavill were all struggling to shoulder their responsibilities, but Hoechlin's Superman has a decade of experience and found his bliss.

He isn't juggling two legacies; he's settled into both. He isn't working through his identity confusion around Lois; they're a very happy couple. He isn't nervous about his relationships; he works closely with scientists to share Kryptonian technology with humanity but holds the DEO at a distance because they want to be ready to kill him. He keeps watch on Kara but keeps his distance with texts and instant messaging because he doesn't want to be a helicopter parent.

The result is a Superman who is at the end of his character arc with his demons vanquished and his conflicts resolved. Even when disgruntled with the DEO, Hoechlin's Superman is all civility and graciousness, making sure to shake hands and thank DEO staff for all their hard work.  Hoechlin's Superman isn't designed for internal conflict or personal struggle, not because he's incapable of it, but because he's a supporting character who is Kara's role model.

This problem with this Superman, if you could even call it a problem, is that he can't sustain an ongoing TV series because he has resolved all his issues. But Hoechlin's Superman isn't meant to be a series lead anyway. His greatest superpower might be his superhuman relaxation. He has the effortless calm that would come with being bulletproof.

This is the most laid-back version of Superman ever onscreen. A Superman who has reconciled his dual origins isn't going to hit the notes that Informant prefers for this character.

The parts of Superman's legend to which Informant has a deep connection are not the only parts of Superman that exist. And it's not a crime that Tyler Hoechlin's Superman isn't Informant's Superman. It's not a weakness. It's not a flaw. Hoechlin's Superman is the perfect Superman for this SUPERGIRL series.

What it comes down to, really, is that Informant sees Superman as a self-portrait. The farm and the American heritage and the parents seem to be vital factors for him, and if he doesn't see himself in Superman, then it's not Superman to him. And I might not see my Superman in certain adaptations, but I would take it a step behind Informant's intensity.

So many writers and actors have written for and performed as this character and each one will have a very different take on the same source material. Zack Snyder, J. Michael Straczynski, Joss Whedon, Ali Adler, Jeph Loeb, Mark Waid, Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, Bruce Timm, Paul Dini and more each created their own individual Superman. Between them all, Superman has been an angsty teen, a loving father figure, a meatloaf addict, a vegetarian, a tormented soul, a cheery wisecracker, a hard-boiled reporter, a nervous milquetoast, a down-to-earth human and an unrelatable alien. Nobody should draw a box around any one incarnation as the only one that works.

My favourite incarnation is the Red Blue Blur of SMALLVILLE's eighth season and I would say this version is completely unworkable and should never be perpetuated in subsequent adaptations. My least favourite is Frank Miller's, although Clark in Seasons 2- 7 of SMALLVILLE is also pretty bad.

Weirdly, I don't even put Tyler Hoechlin on my list of favourite Supermans because he's quite distinctly *Supergirl's* Superman and he's best compared to Melissa Benoist rather than other Superman actors.

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

You're doing that thing again, where you're having a conversation with yourself and attributing half of it to me. smile

It's true that I have a favorite idea of what Superman/Clark Kent should be. I do prefer the version where he sees humanity as his people, while having a respect for his alien heritage. This makes the most sense to me, since he was raised with humans and this would be his experience. If you plopped him down on Krypton, that world would be more alien to him than Earth. It's the same as if you plopped me down in one of the countries where my ancestors came from. I might have a curiosity about those cultures in some way (though I really have no more or less interest in my ancestral cultures than I do any other cultures, so I may be a bad example), but they are not my culture, and those lands are not my home. I have more connection to my Asian neighbors across the street who don't speak a word of English than I do to a random person from Ireland.

That said, I can also accept a version of Clark that feels neither here nor there, if it's done well. The thing about Man of Steel is that while Clark sees humanity as his people, he also feels like an alien among humans until he fully accepts his heritage. At that point, he doesn't become a Kryptonian, he becomes like most Americans.

It's not about any version of the character having to be written any one way. It's about the choices that the writers make when they decide how they want to write him. I have a hard time accepting Superman as someone who is super alien and who sees himself as more Kryptonian than human, because I think that violates so much of what makes Superman who he is. It also makes no sense, given his upbringing. The thing that makes Superman different than Martian Manhunter, or any of the other alien superheroes is that he has a alien DNA, but a human upbringing. That humanity is one of his super powers. It's his compass. However, the animated series' Superman was fine, and he was much more alien than I typically prefer the character to be.

This is also why Kara is such an important figure in the Superman lore, in my opinion. She is a character with the same DNA, the same powers, but who actually remembers Krypton and who really is alien. She is the balance and the contrast. She is what Superman would be without the foundation that the Kents built. She's not bad. She's not less than him. But she has a different experience.

That's what frustrates me about Supergirl, the series. They didn't write Kara as her own character. They wrote her as a copy of Superman, but they didn't remove him from the picture. So now we have two of the same character, and Superman can't make Kara look smaller or weaker, or less capable in any way (despite his many years of experience). So we have a watered down Superman. Then we have the CW requirement that all of their characters be supermodels, so he has to be younger than he should have been, while Cat was established as both his contemporary and as Kara's older mentor. Then we have a Lois who has to be CW pretty and young, yet who is supposed to have the years of experience and wisdom... It's a mess. And it's because the story wasn't a priority.

Tyler isn't a bad actor. He might even be okay as some version of the Superman character (actually, he'd have made a cool Connor Kent on Supergirl. Obviously, one who is a bit older than we normally see him). However, they chose not to cast someone who would tower over Kara or make her look small, and every time I've seen him used (before I stopped watching Supergirl), it seemed like Superman was being written down in order to raise Kara up. And this was mostly necessary because they chose to write them as more or less the same character anyway (except he's too afraid to be a woman, or whatever). He comes across as weaker than he should, less seasoned than he should, and... really, he seems like a sidekick. They should have cast someone older, who seemed more weathered and wise, and who would command the audience just by being present in a scene. However, the impression is that this would make Kara look weak and less capable than a man, and since feminism trumps story in this series, that can't be allowed to happen. This is a weakness of the character. He doesn't come across as someone who has been through the worst of it and come out the other side. He comes across as watered down.


When Henry Cavill was cast as Superman, I wasn't happy. This was because it was a time when DC seemed to be leaning away from the character's American roots, and more toward that "citizen of the world" crap. It seemed like they might be taking the character in the wrong direction, and I did think that it might be hard for a foreign actor to understand that sense of American patriotism, because most people in other countries that I've heard speak on the subject really don't get why Americans are so rah-rah American. However, Snyder didn't shy away from those roots at all, and I get the sense that Cavill is patriotic himself (though obviously to his own country), so he could understand that aspect of the character. I was right to worry, but I was ultimately proven to be wrong about Cavill.


Basically, it comes down to motivation and writing. If the writers could show me a Superman who was raised on Earth, yet felt mostly Kryptonian, and they did it in a way that was well considered and made sense for that character, that'd be fine with me. It's a hard sell, but any Superman story is a hard sell for me. Keep in mind, before Man of Steel, I was firmly on the Batman side of the age-old debate. For me, it's never been about making me believe that a man could fly. It was about making me believe that a flying alien could be a person.

Please be informed that the political, scientific, sociological, economic and legal views expressed in Informant's posts and social media accounts do not reflect any consensus of Sliders.tv.

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

I think I'm somewhere in the middle.  I do like the version of Superman that they've created - just because I think he's fun and happy and helpful.  As a supporting character, I think ireactions is right - he's a great fit.

Although I also think Informant is right on some things.  I do think they make him look weaker/smaller so that Kara can be the hero.  I think some of that is Clark saying things to make Kara feel better, unless this version of Superman is actually significantly weaker than other versions of the character.  But some of the feminism stuff does get old when they hammer it in - I think Kara and Clark being on equal footing would be a pretty strong feminist statement - having him constantly say how much stronger Lois and Kara are does make him look like a bit of a pushover.

There was an episode in season one of Supergirl where Superman flies in and saves the day when Kara needed help.  He never made an actual appearance, and he was this mysterious figure who would send Kara emails and instant messages to assure her that she's doing a great job.  I actually sorta liked that version of the character - who didn't show up because he wanted Kara to be her own person.

I'm now picturing a Deus Ex Machina version of Clark on Supergirl, played by someone the size of the Rock.  He'd be this almost-exclusively background, almost mythological character.  We'd never see him fight or do anything, but we'd know from Superman lore and from stories on the show that he's everything we think he is.  And when he compliments Kara or even asks her for help, it's a huge thing for her.

In fact, maybe never show him in the suit.  Every appearance is as Clark in his civilian clothes, and Superman is this figure that only exists in our imaginations.

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

Informant wrote:

if you plopped me down in one of the countries where my ancestors came from. I might have a curiosity about those cultures in some way (though I really have no more or less interest in my ancestral cultures than I do any other cultures, so I may be a bad example), but they are not my culture, and those lands are not my home. I have more connection to my Asian neighbors across the street who don't speak a word of English than I do to a random person from Ireland.

The pre-1944 Superman was a very different character from the post-1986 Clark Kent. Jonathan and Martha Kent had died when Superman was 18 or so. The characters were at most cameos. There was the sense that Superman (as opposed to Clark) had an amiable but distant relationship with his parents; he never mentioned them, it was like they didn't exist -- and there was the sense that Superman based his identity on the databank in his spaceship and the Fortress of Solitude and spent most of his childhood in hiding until his parents died and he made his debut as Superman.

However, this was undermined in 1944 when Superboy debuted and showed Superman's career as a teenager and depicted Jonathan and Martha Kent in a loving, close relationship with their adopted son. The Superman and Superboy comics were hopelessly at odds, having teen versions of Lois and Clark meet each other in contradiction to their first encounters in the Superman comics. Superman's origin story would be updated with his Superboy career in flashback issues, but Superman and Superboy would continue presenting two irreconciliable versions of their lead character and his life with Superboy as a very American and human character and Superman as an extremely alien character for whom "Clark Kent" was a constructed psych experiment. There was the (probably unintended) implication that the death of Jonathan and Martha would lead to Superman drifting from his humanity except in terms of the "Clark" identity.

The Superboy adventures were (retroactively) declared to have taken place in a "pocket universe" separate from the main DC Universe, although this had less to do with the Superboy/Superman contradictions and more to do with explaining how the Legion of Super Heroes could have featured a Superboy who never existed after the 1986 reboot. The 2010 Secret Origin mini-series, however, restored Superboy to Clark's origin story and fit in a lot better with the modern Clark Kent than the pre-1986 Superman.

Anyway. My point is that the alien Superman is just as valid a take as Clark Kent of Kansas. Yes, Clark Kent has become the main personality and this has ultimately proven to be a good move and a natural progression for the character. But every adaptation should feel free to choose whatever aspects of Superman suit its purpose whether it's the alien Superman or the human Clark and SUPERGIRL, in depicting Kara's role model, chose to have Superman reflect more of his Kryptonian heritage in his dialogue which served as an effective contrast to Kara being more defined by her human connections.

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

That would be fine if it made sense, but it doesn't. Clark was raised on Earth, by humans. Kara spent most of her childhood on Krypton. Why would she represent humanity, and he represent their alien heritage?

If they took the time to have any of this make sense, it'd be fine. But instead, they wanted Kara to be a female Clark. That doesn't leave room for the actual Clark/Superman.

Please be informed that the political, scientific, sociological, economic and legal views expressed in Informant's posts and social media accounts do not reflect any consensus of Sliders.tv.

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

To be fair, I think there's an explanation for this.  Kara has been on Earth for a really long time.  The immigrant label works for her because she was raised on Krypton but she essentially grew up (out of childhood) on Earth.  She moved here and now identifies as an Earthling (if not a human).  Just like an immigrant might move to another country, start a life and family there, and then identify as a citizen of that country.  I've met immigrants who did things the right way, earned their citizenship, and they had just as much of a right to call themselves American as I do.  And since they worked so hard for it, the American part of them was very exciting.  Learning English, learning our history...it was all very exciting to them and they wanted to grow that part of themselves.

Then there's the nativeborn American that finds out, through DNA testing or ancestral studies, that they're 99% Polish or something.  So they study up on their ancestors, learn about the culture and food and history, and maybe even travel to visit that place. 

The first person isn't giving up their old ways and histories.  They don't stop caring about or relating to their old country, but they're just excited about a new place and the promise it brings.  The second person isn't abandoning their American citizenship or trying to become a citizen of Poland.  But they found out something about them that was pretty neat and unique and different, and they just want to get to know that a bit more.

Kara grew up on Krypton, but she'd also know all the warts about it.  Earth is new and exciting without some of those warts.  She knows the people there are good and wants to be good like them.  Clark grew up on Earth but he found out this cool part about himself and wants to learn about it.

And I think some of the stuff Superman says in public is supposed to throw people off the track that he's lived here the whole time.  It makes the Clark Kent identity a little safer if people don't think Superman has been living among them for so long.  He says "your language" in the same way that Clark tells Lois in Man of Steel that "on my world, it means hope."

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

Also, Kara spent most of her life hiding her powers and subsuming herself into a human identity while Superman has embraced both his human life as Clark and his Kryptonian side as Kal-El.

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

Batwoman is getting a pilot.

I wonder how many of the Batman characters they'd have access to.  I'm sure Kate Kane has her own Rogues' Gallery, but she's going to be living in a Gotham where all of Batman's villains have been established to exist.  If none of them show up, it's going to be weird.

I'd love for them to be able to play around with Dick Grayson, Barbara Gordon, Tim Drake, Damien Wayne, Jason Todd, etc.  I don't remember - did Elseworlds imply/confirm that Alfred and/or Gordon was dead?  Or am I getting my DC shows confused?

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

I can’t help but notice the timing of it all.  Gotham ends its run on Fox soon, and Batwoman comes directly after.  With Gotham dead, I imagine that frees up everything bat related.  And looking at what’s happening on series like Titans, it’s doesn’t seem that Warner is holding them back too much on what they can use.

The interesting thing will be what comes after Crisis.  The primary function of Crisis on Infinite Earths was to merge all realities into one to streamline continuity.  We may soon see one cohesive universe across all of the shows with somethings changing and some staying the same.   After Crisis, Batwoman and Batman may exist together the way Supergirl does with Superman.

As far as Batwoman rogues go, there is some crossover not only with Batman but also Arrow and Flash rogues:

https://comicvine.gamespot.com/profile/ … wip/52885/

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

Late response to the Superman thing...

I have liked a few different takes on Superman. I liked Smallville's take, and the Lois and Clark take (which were both more human). I liked the animated series, which was leaning more toward alien, since he spent most of his time as Superman. My favorite is Man of Steel, which is pretty much what was described above, with Clark being pretty human, but with an interest in where he comes from. Clark embraced that heritage in the movie, but it didn't change the fact that he views humanity as his people, because this is what he knows. If anything, learning about that heritage made him more like a normal American.

The only depictions that I really have a problem with are the ones that paint Clark Kent as a fabrication, and portray the character as being very alien. Even if he had no parents, no friends growing up, no home, none of the moral compass that the Kents gave him, he would have grown up on Earth. Clark Kent is the person he was before the costume. Now, there could be a bit of exaggeration of certain traits when he is in public (both as Clark and as Superman), but the "real" person is who he is when he is sitting at a table with his mother or Lois. Depicting him as super alien is like me going to Ireland and telling people that I'm Irish. They'd look at me as though I were an idiot, because I'm clearly American. I can have an interest in the history, the culture, the accents, the folklore, etc, but I'm not of that place. I can't change my life experience.

Superman was created as not just a version of Moses, but as a version of what America is. It's a place where people come from all around the world, and they *become* American. That isn't true in every country (especially when the character was created). In a lot of the world, an immigrant is always an outsider. Not shamed or looked down upon, but not really one of the group either. In America, you can have the alien backstory and be as American as the guy who was born here. Having the character depicted as having grown up here, as part of an American family and an American town, yet existing outside of that, feels wrong for the character.

I don't know every version of the character, or every writer who has written him. I'm just talking about how I've viewed the character since I was a little kid, and why so many versions of the character bored me, or just felt wrong to me.



As far as the Batwoman series goes, I don't really see a need for it. There are too many comic book shows on the CW, from the same producers, who are already spread too thin. The character didn't make that much of an impact in the crossover. I think the network should be cutting back, more than expanding on this universe.

Please be informed that the political, scientific, sociological, economic and legal views expressed in Informant's posts and social media accounts do not reflect any consensus of Sliders.tv.

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

Something’s got to give.  I don’t see all of the CW DC shows surviving the addition of Batwoman.

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

I wouldn't be surprised to see Legends end, and maybe a shortened final season of Arrow. Supergirl and Black Lightning probably should end, but probably won't.

Please be informed that the political, scientific, sociological, economic and legal views expressed in Informant's posts and social media accounts do not reflect any consensus of Sliders.tv.

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

If they'd done Legends as an anthology series, a season of Batwoman would work great.  It'd also be a place for a truncated season of Arrow if Oliver is truly going to die in his deal with the Monitor (he won't).

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

Stephen Amell said in his podcast with Michael Rosenbaum that his contract is over as of this year and he hadn't decided if he wanted to extend ARROW, but it would be his decision. LEGENDS' ratings are dire with Season 4 struggling to crack one million viewers.

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

Many have speculated that Arrow’s deal with the Monitor is leading to his death.  If they’re going that route, it would be refreshing to see them pull off a Malibu Exiles style surprise.

When Malibu’s Ultraverse started, it rolled out a lot of new series in a short span, and one of them was Exiles solicited as an average monthly book.  Then issue 4 came out and everybody died.  It was always intended that Exiles was a four issue mini-series; the solicitations for the other future issues were a lie so that the ending would be a shocker.

So let’s say they renew Arrow and promote it as business as usual. Then the final part of Crisis hits in November and Ollie is dead.  The future listings on your channel guide for new Arrow episodes suddenly change to “listing not available”.  Another show appears in the slot.  It’s over.  Arrow is dead.

Probably not feasible for television, but it would get people talking.

Re: DC Superheroes on TV (CW & HBO Max)

It'd be smart of Amell to en the show now. When the series began, his status as an actor was given a boost. However, the show has been on for a long time and the quality is falling, and he's now tied to a sinking ship. The longer he stays, the more damage will be done to his ability to get more work in the future.

Solution: Arrow ends this season (unlikely, since they'd probably want more notice of the show's ending) and Oliver returns for the crossover next season. During the crisis, he is presumed dead. Felicity accidentally stumbles into an elevator shaft. Diggle becomes Green Lantern and flies off to Oa. All of the other characters... forget that they exist.

Flash forward to some time in late 2019... a totally-unrelated-to-the-Arrowverse Roy Harper shows up on Titans.

Please be informed that the political, scientific, sociological, economic and legal views expressed in Informant's posts and social media accounts do not reflect any consensus of Sliders.tv.